Denarius (RIC 1: 3: 432a) issued at Rome by Antoninus Pius (140-4 AD)

Obverse: AVRELIVS CAESAR AVG P II F COS: Bust of Marcus Aurelius, Caesar

Reverse: Juventas, dropping incense on a candelabrum and holding a patera in her left hand

Basic Information on the Temple

Chronology of its Foundation

According to Livy, in 191 BC:

1. “C. Licinius Lucullus dedicated the Temple of Juventas in the Circus Maximus.  M. Livius [Salinator] had:
   

2. ✴vowed it [as consul in 207 BC], on the day on which he had destroyed Hasdrubal and his army; and
   

3. ✴let the contract for its construction as censor [in 204 BC].
   

4. Games were celebrated in connection with this dedication ... , and everything was done with greater solemnity [than usual] in view of the impending war with Antiochus”, (‘History of Rome’, 36: 36: 5-7). 
   

Possible Dies Natalis

Fragment of the fasti Ostienses and associated drawing

Adapted from images in the website Ostia Antica  (See also CIL XIV 4547: column III, line 12)

(Fragmentary entry for 19th November underlined in red)

None of our surviving sources provides a secure indication of the dies natalis of this temple.  However, Howard Scullard (referenced below, at pp. 208-9) argued that the following  passage by the Augustan grammarian M. Verrius Flaccus, as epitomised by Festus, indicates that the games that were initiated in 191 BC were probably public games:

1. “Iuventutis sacra pro iuvenibus sunt instituta”, (‘De verborum significatu’, 92L)
   

2. “The sacred rites of Juventas were established for iuvenes (the young men [of Rome])”, (my translation).
   

He also argued that it is ‘just conceivable’ that a joke that   made in a letter that he wrote to Atticus in January 60 BC indicates that the games that were established at the time of its dedication were, at least by this time, an annual event: Cicero wrote that:

1. “Now this fine new year is upon us.  It has begun with the failure to perform anniversaria sacra Iuventatis (the annual rites of Juventas) because [C. Memmius Gemellus, pr. 58 BC] has initiated the wife of M. Lucullus into rites of his own [i.e. he had seduced her].  Menelaus [i.e., Lucullus] took this badly and divorced the lady ... [It seems that Memmius] has also wiped his boots on Agamemnon [who would have been the brother of Menelaus/ M. Lucullus]”, (‘Letters to Atticus’, 18: 3, translated by David Shackleton Bailey, referenced below, at pp. 105-7)
   

I think that Scullard’s conclusion from Cicero’s joke is unnecessarily tentative: as David Shackleton Bailey (in note 3 to his translation of Cicero’s letter) reasonably assumed from this joke that:

1. “The rites of the goddess Juventas (Youth) were [still] in the charge of the Lucullus family [in 60 BC].”
   

This arguably suggests that:

1. ✴the Lucilli had presided over these games from 191 BC, when C. Licinius Lucullus had dedicated the Temple of Juventas; albeit that
   

2. ✴they were precluded from doing so in 60 BC because of the scandal that Memmius had created.
   

I return to the identities of Menelaus/ M.Lucullus  and Agamemnon below: for the moment, we should simply note that Cicero’s joke would have lost its force if these had been private games and if the failure to hold them in 60 BC had not been a particularly unusual occurrence.

Thus, the likelihood is that, in 60 BC, the Lucilli still presided at annual games that were held on the dies natalis of the temple that they claimed as theirs.  Howard Scullard (referenced below, at p. 208) suggested that they were held on 19th December, based on the restoration of a very fragmentary entry in the fasti Ostienses (1 - 50 AD - see the underlined entry in the illustration above), which he gave as ‘Io[ventati?]’.  He observed that, although this date:

1. “... depends entirely on the restoration of [this fragment, it] would have been a suitable date for preparing the iuvenes for their responsibilities in the coming year.”
   

In short, it is at least possible that, in 60 BC, the Lucillii still presided over annual sacra Iuventatis  on 19th December because their ancestor, C. Licinius Lucullus, had dedicated the Temple of Juventas on 19th December 191 BC.

Possible Location of the Temple  

Regio XI (red): Adapted from this page in Wikipedia

* = possible site of Porta Trigemina; ** = possible site of the Temple of Hercules Victor

*** = possible site of the Temple of Juno Regina; ? = approximate location of the Temples of Summanus and Juventas

As we have seen, Livy (who is our only surviving source) placed the temple in the Circus Maximus.  Pliny the Elder provided supplementary information when he recorded that:

1. “... punishment is yearly inflicted upon the dogs [of Rome] by crucifying them alive on a gibbet of elder, between the Temple of Juventas and that of Summanus”, (‘Natural History’, 29: 14);
   

Aalthough, as Adam Ziolkowski (referenced below, at p. 154) observed:

1. “This helps little, for we do not know the exact location of ... either [of these temples] ...”
   

However, Ziolkowski did point out that , by the Late Empire:

1. ✴Summanus had become Dis Pater; and
   

2. ✴the Notitia of the ‘Chronography of 354 AD’ located a Temple of Dis Pater in Regio XI, which included the southern and western part of the Circus Maximus (see the map above). 
   

The order of the relevant monuments in this notice is:

aedem Ditis patris ... portam trigeminam ... Herculem olivarium  ... Velabrum

This still leaves considerable uncertainty, not least because:

1. ✴the Velabrum is the only one of these monuments that can now be securely located; and
   

2. ✴the location of the otherwise unknown Temple of Hercules Olivarius in the Notita depends on a now-lost marble base that was found in the Forum Boarium in 1895, which carried an inscription (CIL VI 33936) that has been completed as:
   

3. [Hercules Victor, cognominatus vulg]o Olivarius. Opus Scopae minoris
   

4. In her note on the inscription in the ERD catalogue (see the link abobe), Ilaria Grossi observed that:
   

5. “While the signature of the artist on the plinth of a statue identifies Scopas Minor, a sculptor who was active in the last decades of the 2nd century BC, the inscription itself was engraved in the Severan period, [190 - 225 AD]”, (my translation).
   

Nevertheless, we might reasonably deduce from the evidence of Pliny the Elder and the Notita that a person walking south across the western end of the Velabrum would encounter:

1. ✴the Temple of Hercules Invictus ad Circum Maximum;
   

2. ✴Porta Trigenina; and
   

3. ✴the Temple of Summanus;
   

in that order, followed closely by the Temple of Juventas ad Circum Maximum.

It was probably this line of reasoning that led Samuel Ball Platner and Thomas Ashby (for example) to observe that  that the Temple of Juventas was:

1. “...  ‘in circo Maximo’ and near that of Summanus, and therefore probably on the Aventine side, towards the west end of the circus.
   

Following a different line of reasoning (which I discuss belew) Adam Ziolkowski (referenced below, at p. 154) observed that:

1. “... we can only guess that [the Temple of Summanus, and hence the Temple of Juventas] stood near the Temple of Hercules Invictus, not far away from the carceres [starting gates, at the short, north western side] of the Circus Maximus.”
   

Other scholars are less specific: for example:

1. ✴Penelope Davies (referenced below, at p. 87) asserted that the Temple of Juventas:
   

2. “... took its place with earlier triumphal temples on the Aventine side of the Circus Maximus ...”; and
   

3. ✴Chiara Bariviera (referenced below, at Vol. 1, p. and Vol. 2, Map 171) tentatively placed both the Temple of Juventas and the Temple of Summanus towards the centre of the long southern side of the Circus Maximus. 
   

Cult of Juventas

Shrine of Juventus on the Capitol

According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, L Calpurnius Piso Frugi (writing in ca. 120 BC) had recorded that, when Servius Tullius (traditionally the 6th king of Rome, who reigned in 578 to 535 BC) wished to establish:

1. “... the number of the inhabitants of the City, including the newborn, the recently-deceased and the number of those coming of age, he prescribed the amount that their relations were to pay [and where the payment should be deposited]:
   

2. ✴for each newborn, it was to be paid into the treasury of ... [Juno Lucina, who was associated with childbirth];
   

3. ✴for those that had [recently] died, it was to be paid into the treasury of the Aphrodite, who lives a sacred grove, whom the Romans call Libitina, [who was associated with death and funerary practices]; and
   

4. ✴for those coming of age, it was to be paid into the treasury of Juventas.
   

5. In this way, he would establish how many people were resident [in Rome] each year , and how many of them were of military age”, (‘Roman Antiquities’, 4: 15: 15).
   

Thus, by at least ca. 120 BC, the Romans believed that Juventas had had an archaic shrine in Rome, and that she was associated in some way with men of military age.

Dionysius also recorded that, when L. Tarquinius Superbus (traditionally the 7th and last king of Rome, who reigned in 534 - 509 BC) was preparing the ground for the construction of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus:

1. “The augurs [decided] to consult the auspices concerning each of the altars that were already there there, [in order to ascertain whether the gods to whom they belonged] were willing to withdraw ... [Most agreed: only] Terminus and Juventas ...refused to leave their places.   Accordingly, their altars were included within the circuit of the [new] temples [to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva]:
   

2. ✴one of them now stands in the vestibule of Minerva's shrine; and
   

3. ✴the other now stands in the shrine itself, near the statue  of the goddess.
   

4. This led the augurs concluded that no occasion would ever:
   

5. ✴cause the removal of the boundaries of the Romans' city, [an allusion to Terminus]; or
   

6. ✴impair its vigour, [an allusion to Juventas]; and
   

7. both conclusions held down to my day, which is already the 24th generation”, (‘Roman Antiquities’, 3: 69: 1-2). 
   

This suggests that, in the late Republic, the Romans believed that an altar of Juventas in the cella of Minerva in the Capitoline temple dated back to the Regal period.  A passage by Pliny the Elder suggests that it was actually in the cella: he recorded that:

1. “... Nicomachus, son and pupil of Aristides [(4th century BC)], painted a Rape of Persephone that used to be in the delubrum of Minerva on the Capitol, above the aedicula of Juventas”, (‘Natural History’, 35: 36).
   

2. Lectisternium for Juventas (218 BC)
   

3. The cult of Juventas next appears in our surviving sources in the winter of 218 BC, soon after Hannibal had crossed the Alps  and in the wake of his victory over a consular army at the Battle of Trebbia: as Renee O’Brien and Frederik Vervaet (referenced below, at p. 93) observed:
   

4. “This defeat allowed Hannibal to cross the river Po into Roman territory, making it clear that the war would be fought in close proximity to Rome.  Livy details the popular panic that erupted in Rome when news of this defeat hit the City.”
   

5. Ominous prodigies began to arrive in Rome from across the Italian peninsular, to the extent that the Senate ordered the decemviri Sacris Faciundis to consult the Sibylline Books in order to discover how the gods might be propitiated.  One of the recommendations was that, among other measures:
   

6. “... a lectisternium (a ritual public banquet) [was prescribed] for Juventas ... ”, (‘History of Rome’, 21: 62: 9). 
   

It is instructive to look at this lectisternium in the context of all the rituals that were carried out on this occasion. According to Livy:

1. “... immediately after [the consultation], almost the entire citizenry set about performing [the recommended ceremonies of expiation.  First of all, the city was ritually purified and full-grown sacrificial animals killed for specified gods.  [Then]:
   

2. ✴a gold gift weighing 40 pounds was transported to Lanuvium for Juno; and
   

3. ✴the matrons [of Rome] dedicated a bronze statue to Juno on the Aventine; and
   

4. ✴a lectisternium [was prescribed] at Caere, where the oracular lots had shrunk; and
   

5. ✴a supplication [was offered] to Fortuna on Mount Algidus.
   

6. At Rome, too:
   

7. ✴a lectisternium [was prescribed] for Juventas; and
   

8. ✴a supplication [was offered] ad aedem Herculis nominatim (at the Temple of Hercules, who was specifically named - see below), after which, the whole population was directed [to offer supplications] at all the couches of the gods.
   

9. Then:
   

10. ✴five full-grown animals were sacrificed to the Genius of Rome; and
    

11. ✴the praetor C.  Atilius Serranus was ordered to make vows that would be discharged on condition that the Republic were in the same position ten years hence.
    

12. These expiatory rites and vows that were performed in accordance with the Sibylline books to a great extent allayed religious fears in people’s minds”, (‘History of Rome’, 21: 62: 7-11). 
    

In using bullets above, I have reflected Livy’s use of et ... et to separate the individual expatiations.  I should also draw attention to the fact that the supplication offered at the Temple of Hercules was separated from those offered to the other gods: I think that the reason for this is to be found in a question that was addressed by ‘Plutarch’ (although his answer is less than definitive):

1. “Why is it that, when the [Romans] sacrifice to Hercules ... , they mention no other god by name ... ? Do they [act in this way] because they regard Hercules as a demigod? But, as some relate, even while he was still on earth [and thus mortal], Evander erected an altar to him, [the so-called Ara Maximus]  and brought him sacrifice”, (‘Moralia’, 90).
   

It is possible that Livy’s supplicatio ad aedem Herculis nominatim reflected a tradition in which Hercules was differentiated from other gods in the matter of supplications, although, if so, then the reason is unclear.

Temple of Juventas (207 - 191 BC)

The next occasion on which Juventas appears in our surviving source relates to the events of 191 BC, when (as we have seen) Livy recorded that:

1. “C. Licinius Lucullus dedicated the Temple of Juventas in the Circus Maximus.  M. Livius [Salinator] had:
   

2. ✴vowed it [as consul in 207 BC], on the day on which he had destroyed Hasdrubal and his army; and
   

3. ✴let the contract for its construction as censor [in 204 BC].
   

4. Games were celebrated in connection with this dedication ... , and everything was done with greater solemnity [than usual] in view of the impending war with Antiochus”, (‘History of Rome’, 36: 36: 5-7).
   

I discuss the foundation of this temple in detail below.

Juventas in Book 6 of Ovid’s Fasti

Book 6 of the ‘Fasti’, which dealt with the month of June, began with Ovid finding himself in

1. “... a grove, thick with trees, a place remote from every sound, if it were not disturbed by waters.  Here, I was wondering about the origin of the month just begun and was meditating on... its name.  [Suddenly], I saw goddesses ... I recognised one of them: she was:
   

2. ✴the sister of her own husband: and
   

3. ✴stands on Jupiter’s citadel [i.e. has her own temple, the Temple of Juno Moneta, on the Arx]”, (‘Fasti’, 6: 10-22, based on the translation by Anne and Peter Wiseman, referenced below, at p. 106).
   

Juno made a powerful case for her claims for the titulus mensis.  Ovid then recorded  that:

1. “When Juno had finished, I looked behind me: Herculis uxor (the wife of Hercules) was standing there and, in her face were signs of vigour”, (‘Fasti’, 6: 65-66, based on the translation by Anne and Peter Wiseman, referenced below, at p. 107).
   

Juventas began her pitch to Ovid almost apologetically:

1. “If my mothers orders me to leave the whole of Heaven, I shall not stay against [her] wishes. ... .[She] has taken possession of the golden Capitol and holds  its summit with Jupiter, as she should.  But, all my glory comes from the origin of the month, [which] is the only one I have”, (‘Fasti’, 6: 66-76, based on the translation by Anne and Peter Wiseman, referenced below, at p. 107).  
   

However, she then set out two very good reasons why he should decide that June was named for her.

Juventas’ first claim for the titulus mensis was made in reaction to the pride that Juno a expressed (at 6: 27-28) in being both the sister and the wife of Jupiter: Juventas asked (with mock humility):

1. “What harm would be done, Roman, if you gave the month’s title to the wife of Hercules ?  This land owes me something too, in my great husband’s name: ...  [He] drove [Geryon’s] cattle [from Erytheia] to Rome ... [and] stained the soil of the Aventine with the blood of Cacus”, (‘Fasti’, 6: 77-84, based on the translation by Anne and Peter Wiseman, referenced below, at p. 107). 
   

Thus (presumably for poetic reasons) Ovid chose not to name Juventas: she is the daughter of Juno/ Hera and the wife of Hercules/ Herakles, and thus assimilated to the Greek goddess Hebe.  In this guise, Juventas staked her first claim for the titulus mensis on the soil Aventine, which Hercules had stained with the blood of Cacus.

Juventas’ second claim countered Juno’s boast (at 6: 63-63) that Romulus, the founder of Rome, was her grandson ,  She pointed out that:

1. “Romulus divided the People by age and divided them into two groups:
   

2. ✴[the first group] gives advice, [while] the other one fights; and
   

3. ✴[the first group] recommends war, [while] the other one wages it.
   

4. He also established and divided the months on the same basis:
   

5. ✴Iunius est iuvenum (June belongs to the young); while
   

6. ✴qui fuit ante (what came before it) [ostensibly May, but perhaps Juno] belongs to the old”,  (‘Fasti’, 6: 85-89, based on the translation by Anne and Peter Wiseman, referenced below, at pp. 107-8).
   

This is as close as Ovid came to actually naming Juventas: he implicitly compared:

1. ✴Juno’s claim at 6: 26, that Iunius a nostro nomine nomen habet (June takes its name from mine); with
   

2. ✴Juventas’ claim, at 6: 88, that Iunius est iuvenum (June belongs to the iuvenes, men of fighting age), and thus, by extension, to Juventas herself, who was their the patron.
   

In making this second claim, Juventas described the characteristics of her cult in the form that traditionally dated back to the Regal period: Juventas was the patron of the Romulus’ iuvenes. 

Juventas and Hebe

Regio XI (red): Adapted from this page in Wikipedia

* = possible site of Porta Trigemina; ** = possible site of the Temple of Hercules Victor

*** = possible site of the Temple of Juno Regina; ? = approximate location of the Temples of Summanus and Juventas

Was Juventas Assimilated to Hebe by 218 BC ?

We can now return to the guess made by Adam Ziolkowski (referenced below, at p, 154, mentioned above) that the Temple of Summanus, and hence that of Juventas:

1. “... stood near the Temple of Hercules Invictus, not far away from the carceres [at the short, north western side] of the Circus Maximus.” 
   

Ziolkowski referred his readers to his earlier argument (at p. 51), which began with the assertion that:

1. “[Since] Juventas had not yet a temple in Rome [in 218 BC ], .. the ceremony in her honour was celebrated in a temple of her consort in the Greek religion.”
   

A few sentences later, he characterised Juventas as ‘the Roman Hebe’, which suggests that he agreed with the following assertion of Joy Littlewood (referenced below, at p. 22):

1. “It was during [the Second Punic War] that Juventas was Hellenised and identified with Hebe, daughter of Hera and wife of Herakles.”
   

However, this widely-made assumption is open to question,  It is certainly true that Ovid (in the verses above, which he probably wrote shortly before his death in 17 AD) assumed the assimilation of Juventas and Hebe: for example, as we have seen, in his poetic description of Juventas’ claim for  the titulus mensis of June, he referred to her only as Juno’s daughter and Herculis uxor (the wife of Hercules).  However, as Joy Littlewood herself pointed out:

1. ✴“The only occasion [on which] the three deities [Juno, Juventas and Hercules] were honoured together in Rome was in 218 BC ...”, (p. 22); and
   

2. ✴“Hercules and Juventas, as a divine couple, do not have a significant position in Roman cult or Roman poetry [other than in ‘Fasti’, 6: 65-89]”, (p. 24).
   

Littlewood’s mention of 218 BC indicates that she relied on the passage by Livy (above), which included the information that, following a consultation of the Sibylline Books in that year:

1. ✴the Roman matrons dedicated a bronze statue to Juno on the Aventine;
   

2. ✴a lectisternium was held for Juventas; and
   

3. ✴a supplication was offered at a Temple of Hercules.
   

Ziolkowski, who cited the last two of these lines  at his p. 50, presumably also relied on this passage.  However, as John North (referenced below, at pp. 179-80) pointed out:

1. “It [is often] suggested that Juventas  ... had been assimilated to the Greek Hebe [by 218 BC], because she is mentioned in connection with Hercules (Hebe's husband) at a lectisternium [in that year, as recorded by Livy].  However, all Livy says is that there was a lectisternium for Juventas and a supplicatio at [a] Temple of Hercules at the same time ...”
   

His point was that Livy’s:

1. ‘... et lectisternium luventati et supplicatio ad aedem Herculis nominatim ... ’, (line 9)
   

was part of a list of expiations that were separated from each other by the use of the grammatical formula ‘et ... et’: for example, Livy used the same grammar for:

1. ‘et lectisternium Caere ... et supplicatio Fortunae in Algido’, (lines 8-9);
   

but, in this case, the lectisternium was held at Caere and the supplicatio on Mount Algidus.

North reasonably argued (at p. 180 and note 12) that the a lectisternium for Juventas and a supplicatio at [a] Temple of Hercules held at the same time:

1. “... is hardly evidence of any association [between Juventas and  Hercules]”
   

In other words, nothing in our surviving sources suggests that Juventas was assimilated to Hebe before Ovid and then Servius (4th century AD): in his commentary on a line from Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ on the funeral games that Aeneas held for his father):

1. “cetera populea velatur fronde iuventus (the other youths are veiled with fronds of poplar)”, (‘Aeneid’, 5: 134, my translation):
   

Servius explained that Hercules had brought back poplar from the underworld, and:

1. “Hebe est Iuventas, uxor Herculis (Hebe is Juventas, Hercules’ wife)”, (‘ad Aen.’, 5: 134, my translation).
   

(It is, of course, unlikely that Virgil had had Hercules and Hebe/ Juventas in mind when he he wrote this line). 

In short, there is no evidence in our surviving sources that Juventas was assimilated to Hebe before Ovid wrote the ‘Fasti’ in the early 1st century BC, (although it is unlikely that he was responsible for this development), and it remained the ‘received wisdom’ in the 4th century AD.

Did the Location of the Temple of Hercules Invictus Influence That of Juventas ?

We can now look at the rest of Ziolkowski’s guess about the location of the Temple of Juventus, assuming (as Ziolkowski did) that Juventas was already assimilated to Hebe in 218 BC:

1. ✴“In 218 BC, Juventas had not yet a temple in Rome, and so the ceremony in her honour was celebrated in a temple of her consort in the Greek religion.”
   

2. However, as we have seen, Juventas already had an aedicula in the cella of Minerva of the Capitoline Temple.
   

3. ✴“Her temple, ... was located ad Circum Maximum, of all places: that is in the vicinity of the Temple of Hercules Invictus.”
   

4. However, as Ziolkowski himself pointed out (at p. 291),  a number of temples were built either ad Circum Maximum or in Aventino in the 3rd century BC:
   

5. •ad Circum Maximum: “Bellona [296 BC]; ... Venus Obsequens [295 BC]; Hercules Invictus (292-269/6 BC)’; Summanus (276 BC); Flora (240 BC)  ...; and
   

6. •in Aventino: “Consus, in 272 BC; Vortumnus in 264 BC; Minerva in 263-2 BC; and Jupiter Libertas in 246 BC.”
   

7. There is nothing to suggest that the location if the Temple of Hercules Invictus ad Circum Maximum influenced the locations chosen for any of:
   

8. •those dedicated to Flora, Vortumnus, Minerva or Jupiter Libertas, which almost certainly post-dated it; or
   

9. •those dedicated to Summanus or Consus, which possibly did.
   

10. Thus, there was nothing remarkable about the fact that it was decided to build the Temple of Juventas here in 204 BC.
    

11. ✴“This seems to indicate that the partner of Juventas (the Roman Hebe) was Hercules from the area of the Circus Maximus; we should therefore probably situate the lectisternium of 218 BC in his temple”, (my slightly changed word order).
    

12. The argument here seems to be that the location ad Circus Maximus was chosen for the new Temple of Juventas in 204 BC because the lectisternium  for her in 218 BC had been held in the nearby Temple of Hercules Invictus.  However, as we have seen, there would, in any case, have been nothing unusual about this decision in any case.
    

I do not dispute that Ziolkowski’s guess that the Temple of Juventas ad Circum Maximum was located in the vicinity the Temple of Hercules Invictus ad Circum Maximum is a reasonable one.  However, I would argue that there is no compelling case for his arguments:

1. ✴that Juventas was recognised as uxor Herculis by 218 BC;
   

2. ✴that the lectisternium for her in that year was held at Temple of Hercules Invictus ad Circus Maxiumus; or
   

3. ✴that this influenced the choice of the site for her temple in 204 BC.
   

Rather, I would like to suggest that it is at least possible that the co-location of the two temples ad Circum Maximum eventually led to Juventas’ association with Hercules in the public consciousness and her consequent assimilation to Hebe.   On this hypothesis, the idea of the assimilation would have emerged in at some time around 191 BC, when the Temple of Juventas was finally dedicated

Ovid and the Assimilation of Juventas to Hebe

We might now usefully look again at the following lines from Ovid’s Fasti, when he imagined himself standing in: 

1. “... a grove, thick with trees, a place remote from every sound, if it were not disturbed by waters.  Here, I was wondering about the origin of the month [of June] and was meditating on... its name.  [Suddenly], I saw goddesses ... I recognised one of them [as Juno, who made a powerful case for her claims for the titulus mensis].  When Juno had finished, I looked behind me: Herculis uxor (the wife of Hercules) was standing there ...”, (‘Fasti’, 6: 10-67, based on the translation by Anne and Peter Wiseman, referenced below, at pp. 106-7).
   

I wonder whether Ovid was inspired to write this part of the poem when he was actually (as opposed to poetically) standing on the Aventine, initially with:

1. ✴the Temple of Juno Regina in front of him; and
   

2. ✴those of Hercules Invictus and Juventus behind him (see the map above). 
   

If so, then, if he had turned round (as he did in the poem:

1. ✴he might well have been able to see the temples of Hercules Invictus and Juventas;, and
   

2. ✴this might well have given him the idea for the first of Juventas’ claims for the titulus mensis:
   

3. “My mother, [Juno], has taken possession of the golden Capitol and holds  its summit with [her husband], Jupiter, as she should. ... [However], this land owes me something too, in my great husband’s name: ...  [He] drove [Geryon’s] cattle [from Erytheia] to Rome ... [and] stained the soil of the Aventine with the blood of Cacus”, (‘Fasti’, 6: 75-84, based on the translation by Anne and Peter Wiseman, referenced below, at p. 107).  
   

After all, as Adam Ziolkowski (referenced below, at p. 46) pointed out:

1. “The southern part of the plain of the Forum Boarium between the Circus Maximus and the Aventine, [which is the probable location of both the Ara Maximus and  the Temple of Hercules Invictus ad Circum Maximum, was also] the site of Hercules' fight with Cacus ...”
   

This hypothesis regarding the source of Ovid’s inspiration is based only on:

1. ✴his claim that, when ’the goddesses’ appeared to him, he first recognised and engaged with Juno and then, when he turned around:
   

2. “... ”Herculis uxor  was standing there ...”; and
   

3. ✴his assertion that Juventas’ first claim for the titilus mensis of June was based on the ‘fact’ that her husband Hercules had performed a valuable service when he had stained the soil of the Aventine with the blood of Cacus.
   

Although this is purely circumstantial evidence, it is hard to deny that this part of the poem has a topographical ring about it: if we imagine Ovid relaxing in a shady spot on the Aventine, he might well have ‘seen’ Juno (in the form of  the Temple of Juno Regina), and then, when he turned around:

1. ✴‘seen’ Herculis uxor (in the form of the Temple of Juventas) standing there; and
   

2. ✴recognised the nearby Temple of Hercules Invictus in the Forum Boarium as a monument to Hercules’ staining of the Aventine soil.
   

For what it is worth, if this actually was how this part of the poem was conceived, then this would suggest that, for  a viewer looking down from a point on the Aventine below the Temple of Juno Regina, the temples of Hercules Invictus and Juventas and would have appeared as,  as close neighbours and with the Temple of Summanus close by.

Career of M. Livius Salinator (219 - 207 BC)

Salinator’s First Consulship and its Aftermath (219 - 210 BC)

First Consulship (219 BC)

Salinator’s first significant appearance in our surviving sources was as consul with L. Aemelius Paullus in 219 BC, a period when these sources are few and fragmentary.  Polybius recorded that the Romans fought against Demetrius of Pharos in Illyria in this year, in an engagement that is usually referred to as the Second Illyrian War:

1. “Aemilius quickly took [the city of] Pharos ... and razed it to the ground.  Then, after subduing the rest of Illyria and organising it as he thought best, he returned to Rome in the late summer and entered the city in triumph.  He was acclaimed by all, for he seemed to have managed matters with considerable ability and extraordinary courage”, (‘Histories’, 3: 19: 12-3). 
   

Zonaras recorded that both consuls were involved in these hostilities:

1. “As soon as the consuls, [L.] Aemilius Paulus and M. Livius [Salinator], heard of [Demetrius’ anti-Roman activities in Illyria], they  ... fought a [successful] campaign against him in Issa.  ... Demetrius made his escape to Pharos,  ... but [the Romans] sailed to that island, ... [and] captured [its capital] ... , although only after Demetrius had fled”, (‘Epitome of Cassius Dio, Book 12’, 8:20). 
   

One  late source recorded that Salinator triumphed on this occasion:

1. “[M.] Livius Salinator, consul for the first time, celebrated a triumph over the Illyrians.  Then, when he was accused out of envy of peculation, he was condemned by all the tribes except the Maecia [see below]”, (‘De viris illustribus urbis Romae’, 50:1, my translation).
   

We can reasonably assume that both consuls participated in the war against Demetrius: as Frank Walbank, referenced below, at p. 325) observed, Polybius’ account:

1. “... is evidently contaminated ... with some family tradition of the Aemilii, which stresses the achievements of L.  Aemilius Paullus, the grandfather of [Polybius’ patron], Scipio Aemilianus, to the exclusion of his colleague M. Livius Salinator.”
   

It is also possible that one or both consuls actually did triumph in this year: the relevant part of the Augustan fasti Triumphales no longer survives, but John Rich (referenced below, at p. 249) included triumphs for both of them over the Illyrians in 219 BC in his reconstruction of them. 

Exile (218 - 210 BC)

As we have seen, one llate source recorded that, after Salinator’s triumph over the Illyrians:

1. “... he was accused out of envy of peculation, [and] was condemned by all the tribes except the Maecia”, (‘De viris illustribus urbis Romae’, 50:1, my translation).
   

Livy had recorded this in greater detail in the context of Salinator’s election to his second consulship:

1. “[He had been] impeached before the Assembly [after his first consulship] and found guilty.  He felt this disgrace so keenly that ... , for many years, he was a stranger to the City and to all public gatherings [there. ... In 210 BC], the consuls M. Claudius Marcellus and M. Valerius Laevinus [persuaded him to return to the City.] ... Even then, he contented himself with a simple "yes" or "no" to the question before the House and, in the event of a division, with a silent vote, until this kinsman M. Livius Macatus was prosecuted [in 208 BC], when the attack upon his relative's reputation compelled him to ... address the House [in Macatus’ defence]”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 34: 3-7).
   

Salinator and the Temple of Juventas (219-8 BC) ??

Adam Ziolkowski (referenced below, at pp. 55-6, note 12) suggested that:

1. “Livy's mention of the lectisternium offered to Juventas [in 218 BC - see above], the year after Salinator's first consulship, might support an inference that his promise to build a temple to this goddess, made at Metaurus in 207 BC, was a repetition of a similar vow  [that he had] made during his first consulate in 219 BC.”
   

On this hypothesis:

1. ✴Salinator vowed to build a Temple to Juventas during the campaign against Demetrius of Pharus in 219 BC;
   

2. ✴this vow was neglected  because Salinator was exiled in 218 BC but, after the Romans’ defeat on the Trebbia, the Senate found it expedient to placate Juventas by ‘specially appointing’ a lectisternium for her ; and
   

3. ✴Salinator’s earlier vow was revived in some way ‘on the day on which he had destroyed Hasdrubal and his army’ in 207 BC.
   

The main problem with this hypothesis is that the vow of 219 BC is unrecorded :

1. ✴in our (admittedly fragmentary) surviving sources for 219 BC; and
   

2. ✴apparently in the records (above) in which Livy discovered that Salinator had vowed it in 207 BC, on the day on which he had destroyed Hasdrubal and his army. 
   

These are arguments from silence, but there is a further potential problem with this hypothesis: according to Livy, in 217 BC, the Romans became:

1. “ ... concerned that the contract for the Temple of Concordia, which the praetor L. Manlius had vowed [in 219 BC, in Cisalpine] Gaul during the mutiny of the soldiers, had not been yet been let.  Accordingly, the urban praetor, M. Aemilius [Regillus], appointed C. Pupius and K. Quinctius Flamininus as duoviri [aedi locandae], and they arranged to have the temple built on the arx”, (‘History of Rome’, 22: 33: 7-8).
   

As Corey Brennan (referenced below, at p. 96), pointed out, Manlius must have made this vow as praetor in 219 BC.  It seems to me that, if Salinator had also vowed a Temple of Juventas in 219 BC, the Senate:

1. ✴would have retained responsibility for its construction, notwithstanding Salinator’s subsequent exile; and
   

2. ✴would surely have mandated the praetor Aemilius to expedite its construction (alongside that of Manlius’ Temple of Concordia, which is discussed further below).
   

Salinator’s Second Consulship (207 BC)

Election to Second Consulship (207 BC)

The Romans’ long campaign against Hannibal had been gaining momentum in 210 BC, at the time of Salinator’s return to public life, and Hannibal had been confined to southern Italy.  However, they had suffered a serious setback in 208 BC, when:

1. ✴both consuls, M. Claudius Marcellus and T. Quinctius Crispinus,were killed in a Carthaginian ambush near the Roman colony of Venusia; and
   

2. ✴Hannibal’s brother, Hasdrubal, was known to be about to cross the Alps into Italy with reinforcements. 
   

According to Livy, by the end of 208 BC:

1. “... the two consular armies had no generals and were in such close proximity to the enemy that both Senate and people were anxious that all other business should be postponed, and consuls elected as soon as possible”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 33: 7).
   

Livy recorded that T. Manlius Torquatus was appointed as dictator to hold the elections for 207 BC and:

1. “... when the patricians began to consider who would make the best consuls [in these dangerous circumstances], one man stood out: C. Claudius Nero.  ... However, [although] he was regarded as a man of exceptional ability, .. his impetuous temperament [meant that he] needed ... a cool and prudent colleague. and [the patricians’] thoughts turned  to [the plebeian Salinator] ...”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 34: 1-3).
   

The two men were duly ‘elected’. 

According to Livy:

1. “With a very dangerous year [in prospect], ... everyone was anxious that the consuls-elect ... should cast lots for their provinces as soon as possible ... Unfortunately, there was a well-known enmity between them and, for [Salinator], his own downfall [above] had deepened that enmity ....
   

Valerius Maximus similarly recorded that:

1. “[Salinator] had gone into exile [in 218 BC] burning with hatred for Nero, by whose testimony he had been especially damaged.”, (‘Memorable Doings and Sayings’, 4: 2, translated by David Shackleton Bailey., referenced below. at Vol. I, p. 363)
   

Livy recorded that, despite this tension between them, Salinator and Nero:

1. “... were prevailed upon to lay aside their quarrels ... [since] the provinces to be assigned to them were not locally indistinguishable (as in the preceding years) but separated by the whole length of Italy:
   

2. ✴the land of the Bruttii and Lucania, facing Hannibal, was assigned to Nero; and
   

3. ✴[Cisalpine] Gaul, facing Hasdrubal, who was reported to be already nearing the Alps, was assigned to [Salinator]”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 35: 5-10). 
   

However, as David Levene (referenced below, at p. 169) observed, there is a disconnect between Livy’s account of Salinator’s animosity towards Nero in the passages above an his account of his actual behaviour:  once in his province:

1. “[Salinator] totally drops his resentment against [Nero], simply (it appears) on the Senate’s say-so, and, [as we shall see], this new-found concord extends, not merely to their actions as commanders, but to the mutual generosity with which they share the credit in the triumph.”
   

I wonder whether Livy mistakenly incorporated into this account some aspects of the better-documented rift between the two men as censors in 204 BC (see below): Aemilius would be a more obvious candidate for Salinator’s main enemy in 218 BC, although we cannot discount the possibility that, as Valerius Maximus asserted, Nero had joined the political attack of that year.

Victory over Hasdrubal (207 BC)

By the time that Salinator was ready to leave for his province, Hasdrubal had crossed the Alps, marched the length of the Po Valley, and established his camp on the Adriatic coast, with the intention of continuing south along the coast to meet up with Hannibal.

Salinator established his camp near Sena Gallica and when Hasdrubal’s location and intentions  became clear, Nero, who had been keeping Hannibal under surveillance in Bruttium, secretly led a detachment of his army on a forced march of some 250 miles, in order to reinforce Salinator’s army.  According to Livy, Hasdrubal saw through this ruse and decided to withdraw under cover of darkness, but he became lost in the riverine territory that confronted him, so that:

1. “... by wasting the day, he gave the [Romans] time to overtake him”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 47: 8-11).
   

Although the topographical details in this and other surviving sources are difficult to reconcile, it seems that Hasdrubal had marched north from Sena Gallica and then, unable to cross the Metaurus, had turned inland.  The point at which the Romans caught up with him is uncertain, but the result is not: as Hasdrubal was still in the process of establishing his camp he found himself under attack by an army divided between the two consuls:

1. “Hasdrubal, on seeing that he must fight, ceased fortifying his camp and placed his elephants in the front line before the standards. ... A mighty battle began between Salinator and Hasdrubal and a savage slaughter on both sides was in progress, ... [when Nero and his men suddenly attacked from the rear].  By now, it was midday, and thirst and heat exposed the gasping [Carthaginians] to unlimited slaughter or capture”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 48: 9-17).
   

The result was now inevitable:

1. “Finally, when fortune was unquestionably on the side of the Romans, ... [Hasdrubal] spurred his horse and  charged into a Roman cohort.  There, in a manner worthy of his father Hamilcar and of Hannibal his brother, he fell fighting.  Never, in a single battle of [this war against the Carthaginians], were so many of the enemy soldiers killed ... ”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 49: 4-5).
   

Even allowing for the likely exaggeration in Livy’ account, it is difficult to avoid the impression that this victory was widely perceived to be the turning point in the war with Carthage.  According to Livy, when the rumours 0f the victory were confirmed by the official reports:

1. “The Senate decreed that, since ...  [Salinator and Nero] had killed the commander and the legions of the enemy while keeping their own armies safe, there should be a thanksgiving for three days. ... All the temples were crowded for all three days, while the matrons, in their richest garments, ... gave thanks to the immortal gods, just as if the war was [already] won”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 51: 8-9).
   

Surprisingly, Livy did not include here the information that:

1. “... [Salinator] had vowed [the Temple of Juventas in the Circus Maximus on the day when he destroyed Hasdrubal and his army,”, (‘History of Rome’, 36: 36: 5-76).
   

As we have seen, this passage comes from recorded in his account of the dedication of this temple in 191 BC.

Ovid recorded that the anniversary of Hannibal’s victory over C. Flaminius at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC fell on  22nd June, but:

1. “... the next day, [23rd June] is better:
   

2. ✴Masinissa overcomes Syphax [in 203 BC]; and
   

3. ✴Hasdrubal himself falls by his own weapon”, (‘Fasti’, 6: 770-3, based on the translation by Anne and Peter Wiseman, referenced below, at p. 125).
   

In their note on this passage (at p. 148), the translators follow the consensus view that ‘Hasdrubal’ here is Hannibal’s brother, who was killed in the battle on the Metaurus in 207 BC.  However, this raises two questions:

1. ✴as the translators observed;
   

2. “It is not clear why Ovid suggests that [Hasdrubal’s] death [was] by suicide”; and
   

3. ✴neither is it clear to me  why, if Ovid was referring here to the events of 203 and 207 BC, he did not put them in chronological order.
   

I wonder whether Ovid’s Hasdrubal might have been Hannibal Gisco (Syphax’ ally), since, according to Appian, the had handed over the command of the Carthaginian army to Hannibal after the latter’s recall from Italy in 203/2 BC, and was then accused of treason shortly before the decisive Roman victory at Zama (202 BC):

1. “Thereupon there was a great clamour and tumult, and some [Carthaginians] ... went in search of Hasdrubal.  He had anticipated them by taking refuge in his father's tomb, where he destroyed himself with poison”, (‘Punic Wars” 8: 36).
   

Neither of these men is a perfect fit, since:

1. ✴according to Livy, Hasdrubal’s brother was died while fighting, not by suicide; and
   

2. ✴according to Appian, Hasdrubal Gisco killed himself  by taking poison, not by falling on his sword.
   

In any case,  a number of Hasdrubals are known to have fought in the war at about this time, and it could be that another of them actually did fall on his weapons on the first anniversary of Syphax’ defeat.  All we can really say is that the day in 207 BC on which Salinator:

1. ✴destroyed Hasdrubal and his army; and
   

2. ✴vowed the Temple of Juventas;
   

was certainly in the summer and might have been recorded by Ovid as 23rd June.

Aftermath of the Battle of Metaurus (207 BC)

Livy recorded that, after the battle, Nero:

1. “... returned to his camp [in the south] and ordered that the head of Hasdrubal ... should be thrown in front of [Hannibal's] outposts ... Hannibal, under the blow of so great a sorrow, ... is reported to have said that he recognised the destiny of Carthage”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 51: 8-12).
   

It was at this point that Hannibal re-located his camp:

1. “... with the intention of concentrating all of his remaining forces in Bruttium, that most distant part of Italy .  He then moved all the people Metapontum, along with those Lucanians who were subject to  him, into Bruttian territory”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 51: 13).
   

Livy then broke off this stream of his narrative, in order to deal with the events taking place outside Italy.  His ‘Italian’ account resumed:

1. “Just at the close of this summer, [when Q.] Fabius, the son of Maximus, who was on [Salinator’s] staff, came to Rome to inform the Senate that [Salinator] considered that L. Porcius and his legions would suffice for the defence of Gaul, and that he and his consular army might be safely withdrawn.  The Senate recalled [both Salinator and Nero], but the instructions given to each differed:
   

2. ✴Salinator was ordered to bring his troops back to Rome; while
   

3. ✴Nero's legions were to remain in their province, confronting Hannibal”, (‘History of Rome’, 23: 9: 1-3).
   

From this, it seems that the consuls  had remained in their respective provinces in the months after the victory:

1. ✴Nero had presumably been keeping an eye on Hannibal in Bruttium; while
   

2. ✴Salinator had apparently been ensuring the complete pacification of Cisalpine Gaul.
   

Only at the end of the summer had it become clear that the victory on the Metaurus really had marked a major turning point in the war.

According to Livy, Salinator and Nero had ideas of their own about how things should progress from this point:

1. “The consuls had been in correspondence with each other, and had agreed that, .. , although they were coming from opposite directions, they should approach the City at the same time.  Whichever should be the first to reach Praeneste was to wait there for his colleague.  [As] it happened, they arrived there on the same day, and despatched a summons for the Senate to meet at the Temple of Bellona, [outside the pomerium] in three days' time ... When the Senate was assembled, ... they  requested that ... :
   

2. ✴special honours should be rendered to the gods; and
   

3. ✴they, the consuls, should [both] be allowed to enter the City in triumph. 
   

4. ... A solemn thanksgiving was [duly] decreed on their behalf, and each of them was allowed to enjoy a triumph”, (‘History of Rome’, 28: 9: 3-6).
   

There is no reason to doubt Livy’s report that both consuls triumphed over Hasdrubal and the Carthaginians: although the relevant entries in the Augustan fasti Triumphales are lost, John Rich (referenced below, at p. 249), for example, included them in his reconstruction of these fasti.  

Vow of the Temple of Juventus (207 BC) 

Roman temples founded (or probably founded) during the Second Punic War (218-203 BC) 

Adapted from Eric Orlin (referenced below, Appendix I, at pp. 201-2)

Authenticity of Livy’s record of Salinator’s Vow of 207 BC

The only surviving record of Salinator’s vow of the Temple of Juventus is that of Livy:

1. “C. Licinius Lucullus dedicated the Temple of Juventas in the Circus Maximus.  M. Livius [Salinator] had:
   

2. ✴vowed it [as consul in 207 BC], on the day on which he had destroyed Hasdrubal and his army; and
   

3. ✴let the contract for its construction as censor [in 204 BC]”, (‘History of Rome’, 36: 36: 5-6).
   

Interestingly, as  we have seen, Livy did not provide this information until he reached his account of the temple’s dedication in 191 BC.  This suggests that:

1. ✴this information probably represented a late addition to Livy’s narrative; and
   

2. ✴as Stephen Oakley (referenced below, at pp. 60-1) pointed out, information of this sort would have derived from records kept by priests, and:
   

3. “... for the period after 400 BC, the correlation of wars, vows and dedications is impressive.”
   

In other words, although much of detail in Livy’s narrative account of the events of 207 BC is likely to be ‘enhanced’, we can reasonably rely on the authenticity of the information relating to the temple, including the fact that Salinator vowed it on the day of his victory over Hasdrubal.  However, we have no information about the circumstances in which he made this vow, and specifically, whether he did so on his own initiative or at the behest of the Senate. 

Hypothesis I: Salinator Made the Vow on his Own Initiative

Since Salinator vowed the temple ‘on the day on which he had destroyed Hasdrubal and his army’, it is usually assumed that he did so on his own initiative: for example, Penelope Davies (referenced below, at p. 82) recorded that:

1. “At the Battle of Metaurus, [M.] Livius Salinator vowed a temple to Juventas ...”; and
   

(as we have seen) added (at p. 87) that this temple:

1. “... took its place with earlier triumphal temples on the Aventine side of the Circus Maximus ...”
   

If this is correct, then Salinator was one of only three generals who vowed (or may have vowed) a temple on this own initiative during the Second Punic War (see the table above):

1. ✴M. Claudius Marcellus certainly vowed his controversial Temple of Honus et Virtus on his own initiative, but our surviving sources do not even agree about whether he did so before or during the war.  This means that this temple is of little use as a comparator our present purposes.
   

2. ✴However, the case of P. Sempronius Tuditanus and the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia on the Quirinal is directly comparable.  According to Livy:
   

3. “During this summer [of 204 BC], the consul P. Sempronius, who was commanding in Bruttium, was marching near Croton when he fell in with Hannibal and an irregular battle ensued: ... The Romans were repulsed and, although it was more of a melee than a battle, no fewer than 1,200  of the consul's men were killed.  [The survivors] retreated in confusion to their camp, but the enemy did not venture to attack it.  [Tuditanus], however, marched away in the silence of the night after despatching a message to the proconsul P. Licinius [Crassus] to bring up his legions.  The two commanders marched back to meet Hannibal with their united forces. ... At the start of the battle, [Tuditanus] vowed a temple to Fortuna Primigenia if he routed the enemy, and his prayer was granted: the Carthaginians were routed and put to flight,  and more than 4,000 of them were killed ... Daunted by his failure, Hannibal withdrew to Croton”, (‘History of Rome’, 29: 36: 4-9).
   

4. There is no reason to doubt Livy’s testimony that Tuditanus vowed this temple on his own initiative, since this information is embedded in his narrative account.
   

That begs the question of why Livy failed to mention Salinator’s vow during his detailed account of the Battle of Metaurus.  One reason might be that (as discussed above), his only source had been the records of the State, which would suggest that Salinator had vowed vow the temple on the day of the battle at the behest of the Senate.

Hypothesis II: Salinator Made the Vow at the Behest of the Senate 

Since (as we have seen), we have no evidence that Salinator vowed the Temple of Juventas on his own initiative,  we should examine the other main possibility: that he did so at the behest of the Senate.  If so, then this would have followed the consultation of the the Sibylline Books, since, as Eric Orlin (referenced below, at p. 105) observed, this seems to have been:

1. “... the only means by which the Roman Senate initiated the process of erecting a new temple in the City [during the Republic].”
   

Sibylline Books and Temple Vows

Although the Senate consulted the Sibylline Books fairly frequently, particularly in times of natural or military disaster, this rarely led to the initiation of a new temple: for example, Eric Orlin Orlin (referenced below, at p. 97) listed only eight temples that were founded in this way in the three centuries from 493 to 191 BC.  Against this background, the practice during the Second Punic War was unusual: we know of eight occasions during which the Senate consulted the Sibylline books in his period (see, for example, Eric Orlin, referenced below, at Appendix II, pp. 204-5), and this resulted (inter alia) in the vowing of three of Orlin’s eight temples. 

The first five of these eight consultations (and the vowing of two of these temples) took place the disastrous early years of the war:

1. ✴218 BC:
   

2. •As we have seen, the Sibylline Books were consulted when Hannibal’s victory on the Trebbia enabled him to cross the Po and take the war into Roman territory.  The acts of propitiation that followed included:
   

3. -a lectisternium for Juventas; and
   

4. -[unspecified] vows made by the praetor C. Atilius Serranus, which would be discharged on condition that the res publica would be in the same position in 10 year’s time (‘History of Rome’, 21: 62: 10).
   

5. ✴217 BC:
   

6. •The Sibylline Books were consulted when the consul C. Flaminius left Rome for his province without having celebrated the Latin festival and many prodigies were reported.  The acts of propitiation that followed included:
   

7. -a lectisternium for Juno Regina on the Aventine (‘History of Rome’, 22: 1: 16-18).
   

8. •The Sibylline Books were consulted again after Hannibal’s victory at Lake Trasimene and the associated death of Flaminius and most of his army.  The acts of propitiation that followed included:
   

9. -a repeat performance on a more generous scale of the vow to Mars that had been made [before the defeat at Trasimene [which Livy had failed to mention above], since the earlier performance had been been carried out incorrectly (‘History of Rome’, 22: 9: 9);
   

10. -vow of temples to Venus Erycina and Mens (‘History of Rome’, 22: 9: 10) - see the table above; and
    

11. -a lectisternium, in which:
    

12. “Six couches were displayed: one for Jupiter and Juno; a second for Neptune and Minerva; a third for Mars and Venus; a fourth for Apollo and Diana; a fifth for Vulcan and Vesta; a sixth for Mercury and Ceres (‘History of Rome’, 22: 10: 9).
    

13. ✴216 BC:
    

14. •The Sibylline Books were consulted because of general alarm at continuing reports of prodigies, and they were expiated ‘as the Books directed’ (‘History of Rome’, 22: 36: 6-8).
    

15. •The Sibylline Books were consulted again after Hannibal’s victory at Cannae and the associated death of the consul L. Aemilius Paullus and most of what had remained of the Roman army.  The acts of propitiation that followed included:
    

16. -the sacrifice of a pair of Gauls and a pair of Greeks by live interment in the forum boarium
    

17. (While this so going on, Q. Fabius Maximus Pictor travelled to Delphi to consult the oracle there (‘History of Rome’, 22: 57: 4-6).
    

As we shall see, the third new temple constructed in the initiative of the Senate was the Temple of the Magna Mater, which was the result  of a consultation of the Sibylline books in 205 BC, two years after the vowing of the Temple of Juventus (see the table above) and the discussion further below).

We should now look at Livy’s account of the vowing of the temples to Venus Erycina and Mens: after Hannibal’s victory at Lake Trasimene, when, the consul C. Flaminius and most of his army had been killed, Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, who was appointed as dictator to deal with the resulting crisis:

1. “... convened the Senate on the day that he took up his office.  Dealing first the question of religion, he convinced the [Senate] that ... Flaminius  had erred more through his neglect of the ceremonies and the auspices than through his recklessness and ignorance. ... He prevailed on them to do what is rarely done, except when dreadful prodigies have been announced: namely, to order the decemvirs to consult the Sibylline books”, (‘History of Rome’, 22: 9: 7-8).
   

Livy‘ observation (italicised above) is borne out by the list of the known consultations produced by Eric Orlin, referenced below, at Appendix II, pp. 203-4): all the known consultations before 217 BC had been triggered by natural disasters (drought plague etc. or natural disaster. In other words, in 217 BC: Verrucosus might well have prompted the Senate to make an unprecedented decision; that the Sibylline Books should be consulted in the context of a military emergency.  Livy then recorded that:

1. “When the decemvirs had consulted [the Sibylline Books], they reported to the [Senate that, among other measures] that:
   

2. ✴the vow that had been made to Mars [before the defeat at Trasimene], which had been performed incorrectly, must be repeated on a more generous scale; and
   

3. ✴temples must be vowed to Venus Erycina and to Mens. ...
   

4. Since [Verrucosus] would [soon] be occupied with the conduct of the war, the Senate (on the recommendation of the college of pontifices) commanded the [urban] praetor, M. Aemilius ... to see that all these measures were promptly put into effect”, (‘History of Rome’, 22: 9: 9-11).
   

The dedications that the books recommended were to deities who were likely to be particularly useful in the circumstance: as Joy Littlewood (referenced below, at p. 77) observed:

1. “A temple was vowed to ... Mens  (Good Sense and Prudence), which had been so conspicuously lacking in C. Flaminius, and ... Venus Erycina ... could watch over Roman interests from her shrine at Eryx, [which the Romans had probably taken from the Carthaginians in the First Punic War] ...”
   

These ‘strategic’ choices further underline the radical change that characterised Roman religious practices at this time of crisis.  Livy then recorded that:

1. “[Both] temples were then vowed:
   

2. ✴that to Venus Erycina by [Verrucosus], because the [Sibylline Books] had recommended that he whose authority in the State was paramount should make the vow; and
   

3. ✴that to Mens, by the praetor Titus Otacilius”, (‘History of Rome’, 22: 9: 10).
   

After making his vow (on behalf of the State), Verrucosus left Rome to deal withHannibal, having sent Otacilius to  take command of the fleet at Ostia.

Potential Scenario for Hypothesis II

The first point to make is that it is most unlikely that Livy failed to record a consultation of the Sibylline Books in 207 BC, whether or not it had led to the vowing of the Temple of Juventas.  However, as noted above, the remedies that had been found in the consultation of 218 BC had included:

1. ✴a lectisternium for Juventas; and
   

2. ✴[unspecified] vows made by the praetor C. Atilius Serranus, which were conditional on the return of the res publica within ten years to the position that it had found itself in after the defeat at Trebbia.
   

It is at least possible that one of these unspecified but conditional vows had related to the construction of a temple for Juventas, the patron of men of military age: on this scenario, she was given a lectisterniusm in 218 BC and was promised here own temple if the military situation were to be significantly improved in the coming decade. 

We should now ‘fast forward’ to the day in 207 BC on which Salinator destroyed Hasdrubal and his army and vowed the Temple of Juventas.  As we have seen, both Nero and Salinator then remained with their respective armies in their respective provinces for the rest of the summer:

1. ✴Nero presumably kept an eye on Hannibal in Bruttium; while
   

2. ✴Salinator was still needed in order to secure the complete pacification of Cisalpine Gaul.
   

Only at the end of the summer did it become clear that the victory on the Metaurus  had marked a major turning point in the war.  Thus, on the day of the battle, the Senate might still have felt the need to placate Juventas, who still lacked a temple of her own. 

This brings us to the urban praetor’s unspecified vows of 218 BC, which had been conditional on the return of the res publica to the position that it had found itself in after the defeat at Trebbia within ten years:

1. ✴These vows would have expired two years before the day of the battle.
   

2. ✴However, a case could be made that, on the day of the battle, the res publica finally  more secure than it had been in 218 BC.
   

In other words, it is possible that, on this day, the Senate found it expedient to propitiate Juventas anew, and that it relied on a new ‘interpretation’ of one of the conditional vows  of 218 BC in order found a temple to Juventas.  If so, then it is at least possible that Salinator vowed the new Temple of Juventas on the day of the Battle of Metaurus, not on his own initiative, but at the request of the Senate, because:

1. ✴he was the most senior magistrate within easy reach of Rome; and
   

2. ✴his recent victory entitled him to this honour.
   

Hypotheses I and II: Interim Conclusions

The interim conclusion must be that neither hypothesis is particularly compelling:

1. ✴The main problem with Hypothesis I is that, in his detailed description the victory on the Metaurus in some detail, he did not record that Salinator vowed a temple to Juventus before or during the fighting.
   

2. ✴However, similar problem arises with Hypothesis II: Livy recorded that, when the official reports of the victory (presumably from the consuls) arrived in Rome, the Senate decreed that, since they:
   

3. “... had killed the commander and the legions of the enemy while keeping their own armies safe, there should be a thanksgiving for three days. ... All the temples were crowded for all three days, while the matrons, in their richest garments, ... gave thanks to the immortal gods, just as if the war was [already] won”, (‘History of Rome’, 27: 51: 8-9);
   

4. but there is no record here to suggest that the Senate gave Salinator the honour of vowing a Temple to Juventas.
   

However, I return to this comparison in the section below on Salinator’s  letting of the contract for this temple in 204 BC.

Career of M. Livius Salinator (206-204 BC)

Salinator served as proconsul in Etruria in  206 and then in  205 BC, the year in which Mago (another of Hannibal’s brothers) landed in Liguria.  He continued as proconsul in Cisalpine Gaul in 204 BC, when the Romans were intent on preventing Mago from crossing the Po into Italy.

Censorship of Salinator and Nero (204 BC)

Livy recorded that, by the summer of that year (when it was clear that Mago would not be able to reach Italy and Hannibal was confined to a small area of Bruttium), Salinator and Nero were serving together again, this time  as censors.  He devoted a whole chapter to this censorship, but the most relevant information for our purposes (at ‘History of Rome’, 29: 37: 2) is that Salinator and Nero:

1. ✴undertook a a thorough survey of the state of repair of public buildings and
   

2. ✴let the constructions contracts for:
   

3. •a road from the Forum Boarium to the Tempe of Venus; and
   

4. •the Temple of the Magna Mater on the Palatine.
   

Surprisingly, Livy did not include here the information that:

1. “... [Salinator] let the contract for its construction [of the Temple of Juventas] as censor”, (‘History of Rome’, 36: 36: 5-76).
   

As we have seen, this passage comes from recorded in his account of the dedication of this temple in 191 BC and, as discussed above, Livy probably found the information in pontifical records and probably added it to his account of the events of 191 BC at a late stage in its composition.

Most of the rest of Liv’s account of this censorship is the breakdown in the relationship between Salinator and Nero.  This was more conveniently summarised by Valerius Maximus:

1. “When [Salinator and Nero] were reviewing the centuries of the equites [as censors] ... and it was the turn of the tribe Pollia, [which was Salinator’s tribe], the crier, reading Salinator’s name, hesitated to call it.  When Nero realised that, he ordered that his colleague should be called, and that he should sell his horse, because he had been found guilty in a trial before the people.  Salinator for his part pursued Nero in equal measure, giving as his reason that Nero had offered reconciliation to him in bad faith. .. [In his turn], Salinator did not scruple to relegate 34 tribes to the lowest category because, after condemning him, they had [subsequently] elected him consul and then as] censor, arguing that they must be guilty either of irresponsibility [in voting for him] or of perjury [in condemning him].  He acquitted only one tribe, the Maecia, since it had neither voted for him nor condemned him”
   

2. (‘Memorable Doings and Sayings’, 2 6a-b: translated by David Shackleton Bailey, referenced below. at Vol. I, pp. 215-7).
   

Contract for the Temple of Juventas (204 BC) 

Roman temples founded (or probably founded) during the Second Punic War (218-203 BC) 

Adapted from Eric Orlin (referenced below, Appendix I, at pp. 201-2)

At first sight, the fact that Salinator let the contract for this temple as censor might count in favour of Hypothesis I (above): Salinator had vowed the temple in battle as consul and let the contract for it in his next magistracy, which happened to be his censorship.  However, as Eric Orlin (referenced below, at p. 142 and note 101) observed;

1. “... censors did not ordinarily let the contracts for the construction of new temples, [albeit that they often did so for other new public buildings , as well as for the restoration of both temples and other public buildings].”
   

Indeed, we know of only one certain and one possible case, apart from the two that took place in 204 BC:

1. ✴C. Junius Bubulcus Brutus, let the contract for the Temple of Salus as censor in 306 BC; and
   

2. ✴the unknown man who let the contract for the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia might also have been a censor. 
   

I discuss the letting of the contracts for the Temple of Salus , Temple of Fortuna Primigenia and the Temple of the Magna Mater in turn below, before returning to the case of the Temple of Juventas.

Contract for the Temple of Salus (306 BC)

According to Livy:

1. ✴“In [306 BC], C. Junius Bubulcus Brutus, as censor, let the contract for the Temple of Salus which he had vowed as consul [in 317, 313 or 311 BC], during the [Second] Samnite War”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 43: 25).
   

2. ✴“[War with the Aequi in 302/1 BC] necessitated the appointment of a dictator, C. Junius Bubulcus ... He crushed the Aequi in the very first battle and, a week later, he returned to Rome in triumph and, as dictator, dedicated the Temple of Salus, which he had:
   

3. •vowed as consul; and
   

4. •put out for contract as censor”, (‘History of Rome’, 10: 1: 9).
   

Since, as far was we know, the Sibylline Books were not consulted in this period (see, for example, Eric Orlin, referenced below, at Appendix II, pp. 203-4), we must assume that Brutus vowed this temple on his own initiative (probably in thanks for his salvation when he escaped from a Samnite ambush during his third consulship, although Livy did not say so).  However, there might have been a particular reason why Brutus was responsible for vowing this temple as consul, letting the contract censor and dedicating it as dictator:

1. ✴he was, as far as we know, the first Roman general to vow a temple on his own initiative;
   

2. ✴there would thus have been no established procedure for the next steps in the process;
   

3. ✴he might well have faced political obstruction, particularly since he was a plebeian (albeit that he was a very prominent plebeian), which might have meant that he needed to be in office in order to ensure that the next steps were actually taken; and
   

4. ✴his next senior offices were as censor in 306 BC and then as dictator in 302/1 BC.
   

In other words, Brutus’ Temple of Salus is of little use as a comparator our present purposes.

Contract for the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia (ca. 200 BC)

Livy recorded the vowing and dedication of this temple in two related passages:

1. ✴In 204 BC, during the later stages of the Second Punic War:
   

2. “At the start of [an engagement with Hannibal in Bruttium], the consul [P. Sempronius Tuditanus] vowed a temple to Fortuna Primigenia, should he rout the enemy: his prayer was granted [when] the Carthaginians were routed and put to flight ...”, (‘History of  Rome’, 29: 36: 8-9).
   

3. ✴In 194 BC:
   

4. “Q. Marcius Ralla, a duovir created for this purpose, dedicated a temple to Fortuna Primigenia on the Quirinal hill; the consul P. Sempronius Sophus [sic.] had vowed this temple ten years before, during the [Second] Punic War, and had let the contract as censor”, (‘History of  Rome’, 34: 53: 5-6).
   

John Briscoe (referenced below, 1981, at p. 132) observed that:

1. “... there was no Sempronius Sophus in office during the Second Punic War, and the reference [in the second passage] is clearly to P. Sempronius Tuditanus [as in the first passage].  However, he was censor in [209 - 208 BC, and he obviously cannot have let the contract for a temple that he had not yet vowed.  It is impossible to say how the confusion arose.”
   

In order to attempt to explain the confusion, we should note that the two passages above were based on different types of records:

1. ✴The first passage, which related the Tuditanus’ vow, came from a narrative source, and there is no particular reason to doubt that Tuditanus had vowed this temple in the circumstances that Livy described.
   

2. ✴The second passage came from a list of four temples that were all dedicated in 194 BC, and in each case, Livy identified:
   

3. •the vower and the year of the vow;
   

4. •the man who let the contract and the year in which he did so; and
   

5. •the dedicator in 204 BC.
   

6. This information almost certainly came from a single pontifical source, and the only part of it that must be incorrect records that P. Sempronius Sophus had vowed this temple as consul 204 BC and let the temple contract (in an unspecified year) as censor:
   

7. •the vower then was clearly P. Sempronius Tuditanus,as consul in 204 BC; and
   

8. •the date of dedication was almost certainly 194 BC.
   

It seems to me that:

1. ✴Tuditanus probably let the contract, either later on in his consular year or as proconsul in 203 BC; but
   

2. ✴we cannot rule out the possibility that the contract had been let by one or both of the censors of 204 BC.
   

Contract for the Temple of the Magna Mater (204 BC)

Livy described the chain of events that led to the building of this temple: in 205 BC:

1. “The state was ... suddenly occupied with religious matters following the discovery of a prediction in the Sibylline Books, ... according to which:
   

2. ‘Whenever a foreign enemy brings war into the land of Italy, he may be driven out of Italy and conquer if the mater Idaea (the mother goddess of Mount Ida in the Troad] should be brought from Pessinus [in in Phrygia, modern Anatolia] to Rome”, (‘History of Rome’, 29: 10: 4-5).
   

The Romans sent ambassadors, first to Delphi and then to the court of King Attalus I of Pergamum, who

1. “... received [them] graciously, and conducted them to Pessinus, where he presented them with a sacred stone that, according to the inhabitants, was the Mother of the Gods, and invited them convey it to Rome”, (‘History of Rome’, 29: 11: 7-8).
   

The sacred stone duly arrived off the coast of Italy in 204 BC and was ceremonially conveyed:

1. “...into the [already extant] Temple of Victory, in the Palatine on [12th] April, which was made a holiday.  Crowds carried presents to the goddess ... There was [also] a banquet of the gods, and games called the Megalesian”, (‘History of Rome’, 29: 14: 10-14).
   

The Senate certainly arranged for the construction of a new temple on the Palatine for the Magna Mater, but, as Eric Orlin (referenced below, Appendix I, p. 201) observed, the identity of the person who vowed it is unrecorded in our surviving sources.   However, we do know from Livy that:

1. “... the censors, M. Livius Salinator and C. Claudius Nero let the contract for the [Temple of the Magna Mater] in accordance with instructions from the Senate”, (‘History of Rome’, 36: 36: 4). 
   

Contract for the Temple of Juventas (204 BC)

As we have seen, it is possible but unlikely that the contract for the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia was let by a censor.  Thus, apart from the Temple of Salus, which was a special case, we know of only two temples for which the construction contract was let by a censor:

1. ✴the Temple of the Magna Mater, for which the contract was apparently let by both censors of 204 BC, Salinator and Nero in 204 BC; and
   

2. ✴the Temple of Juventas, for which the contract was apparently let by Salinator in 204 BC.
   

Eric Orlin (referenced below, at p. 143) pointed out that:

1. “... the case of [the Temple of the Magna Mater] was somewhat exceptional and should need little argument: the impetus for the temple had come from the Sibylline Books, which ... means that no individual was particularly associated with the cult’s introduction.  Even though an individual magistrate may have made the vow on behalf of the State, [as Verrucosus and Otacilius had done in 217 BC], letting the contract for a Sibyl-motivated temple could not be considered his responsibility.  Under such circumstances, [one might have expected] that the the contract would automatically pss to the censors, if there were any currently in office.  [However], the censors of 204 BC... obtained a special decree of the Senate before they let the contract for the Temple of the Magna Mater [see 36: 36: 4, above].  ... This example ... confirms that censors did not regularly let temple contracts unless they themselves had vowed the temple in question (my italics).”
   

In other words, Orlin believed that Salinator had let the contract for the Temple of Juventas because it we he who had vowed it.  However, as we have seen, Salinator held imperium throughout 207-4 BC (as consul. proconsul and then censor).  I would like to suggest that there is a particular reason why he he dedicated the temple as censor in 204 BC.

To take this further, we should analyse the data relating to the seven temples that were vowed during the Second Punic War (which are summarised in the table above):  

1. ✴We should note first that the contracts for the first three of the seven were all let in 217 BC, when the military situation was dire (as evidenced by the fact that all three of them were built very quickly and dedicated in 216-5 BC).   As it happens, we have unusually full information about how these contracts were let.  First, Livy recorded that:
   

2. “Since [Verrucosus, who had vowed the Temple of Venus Erycina at the behest of the Senate] would [soon] be occupied with the conduct of the war, the Senate (on the recommendation of the college of pontifices) commanded the [urban] praetor, M. Aemilius ... to see that all of the measures [that had been recommended by the Sibylline Books] were promptly put into effect”, (‘History of Rome’, 22: 9: 9-11).
   

3. We can therefore reasonably assume that Aemilius arranged for the contracts for the temple contracts to be let, albeit that we do not know whether he did so himself or delegated the task to duoviri aedi locandae.  However, Livy provided even more information in the case of the Temple of Concordia, later in 217 BC:
   

4. “[The Senate was] concerned that the contract for the Temple of Concordia, which the praetor L. Manlius had vowed [in 219 BC], had not been yet been let.  Accordingly, the urban praetor, M. Aemilius, appointed C. Pupius and K. Quinctius Flamininus as duoviri [aedi locandae], and they arranged to have the temple built on the arx”, (‘History of Rome’, 22: 33: 7-8).
   

5. Eric Orlin (referenced below, in Appendix IV, p. 211) illustrates how unusual the procedures used for these three temples were:
   

6. •the contract for the Temple of Concordia is the only one that was certainly let by duoviri aedi locandae in the period 344-191 BC (although, as noted above, the Temples of Venus Erycina and Mens might also have fallen into this category); and
   

7. •these three temples the only ones that were certainly dedicated by duoviri aedi dedicandae in the period 483-194 BC.
   

8. ✴Marcellus seems to have let the contract for ‘his’ Temple of Honus et Virtus after his election as consul in 208 BC, but this seems to have been controversial.
   

9. ✴The contracts for the last three of the seven were all vowed in or after 207 BC, when the military situation had improved dramatically and there was less need for rapid propitiatory action:
   

10. •the contract for the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia (vowed in 204 BC by Tuditanus as consul) was probably let in 204-3 BC (the first year since 207 BC in which censors held office):
    

11. -probably by Tuditanus as consul or proconsul; but
    

12. -possibly by one of both of the censors, Salinator and Nero; and
    

13. •the contract for the Temple of the Magna Mater (who arrived in Rome in 205 BC) was let by the censors Salinator and Nero on the instructions of the Senate; and
    

14. •the contract for the Temple of Juventas (vowed in 207 BC by Salinator as consul) was let by  Salinator as censor.
    

15. The new lack of urgency after 207 BC is indicated by the fact that all three of these temples were dedicated in 194 BC.  I discuss the question of their dedications below: for the moment, I would like to point out again that Salinator could have let the contract at almost any time between summer 207 BC. It is therefore more likely that he did so as censor because, like the Temple of the Magna Mater and unlike the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia, the impetus for its foundation had come from the Senate.
    

Dedication of the Temple of Juventas (204 BC) 

Roman temples founded (or probably founded) during the Second Punic War (218-203 BC) 

Adapted from Eric Orlin (referenced below, Appendix I, at pp. 201-2)

We can now return to Livy’s record that, in 191 BC:

1. “C. Licinius Lucullus dedicated the Temple of Juventas in the Circus Maximus”, (‘History of Rome’, 36: 36: 5). 
   

Eric Orlin (referenced below, at p. 183, p. 201 and p. 211) reasonably assumed that Lucullus was one of the duovir aedi dedicandae who had been elected in this year.  He is also known from an earlier passage by Livy:

1. “At Rome, [in 196 BC], the tresviri epulones were [chosen by election] for the first time: [those elected were]: C. Licinius Lucullus, tribune of the people, who had proposed the law for their election; P. Manlius; and P. Porcius Laeca”, (‘History of Rome’, 33: 42: 1).
   

We should now return to the joke in Cicero’s letter to Atticus early in 60 BC:

1. “Now this fine new year is upon us.  It has begun with the failure to perform anniversaria sacra Iuventatis (the annual rites of Juventas) because [C. Memmius Gemellus, pr. 58 BC] has initiated the wife of M. Lucullus into rites of his own].  Menelaus took this badly and divorced the lady ... [It seems that Memmius] has also wiped his boots on Agamemnon [who would have been the brother of Menelaus/ M. Lucullus]”, (‘Letters to Atticus’, 18: 3, translated by David Shackleton Bailey, referenced below, at pp. 105-7).
   

The joke would have been particularly funny because of the bad-blood that existed between Memmius and the Luculli: according to Plutarch:

1. “... when [L. Licinius] Lucullus [(cos  74 BC)], had returned to Rome [in 66 BC], he found, in the first place, that his brother Marcus was under prosecution by C. Memmius for his acts as quaestor under the administration of Sulla.  Marcus, indeed, was acquitted, but Memmius then turned his attack upon L. Lucullus [himself], and attempted to inflame the people against him: he charged him with diverting much property to his own uses, and with needlessly protracting the war [against Mithridates], and finally persuaded the people not to grant him a triumph Lucullus strove mightily against this decision, and the foremost and most influential men mingled with the tribes, and by much entreaty and exertion at last persuaded the people to allow him to celebrate a triumph ...”, (‘Life of Lucullus’, 37: 1-2).
   

As Stefano Rebeggiani (referenced below, at p, 5) pointed out, this enables us to identify M. Licinius, the Menelaus of this passage, as M. Terentius Varro Lucullus (cos. 73 BC), who had been adopted by M. Terentius Varro: Plutarch identified him as a quaestor under Sulla in this passage but, at ‘Life of Sulla’, 27: 7, he identified him as a commander in Sulla’s army in 82 BC, and it was probably in this context that Memmius prosecuted him.  The point of this digression is to establish that, although C. Licinius Lucullus was a relatively minor figure in Roman history, his much more illustrious descendants, the consuls of 74 and 73 BC, maintained the family’s association with the cult of Juvents and therefore, presumably with the temple.

This, of course, raises the question of why Salinator was not chosen to dedicate the temple: as Eric Orlin (referenced below, at p. 183, note 72) pointed out:

1. ✴since this was already 16 years after Salinator had let the contract, there cannot have been any urgency; and,
   

2. ✴even if there had been a delay in construction, and if Salinator were dead by this time, his son was still alive. 
   

He therefore argued that:

1. “The Senate clearly made a conscious choice not to have [Salinator or his son] dedicate ... the temple.”
   

As I have argued above, I think that this was because the impetus for the foundation of this temple had come not from Salinator himself but from the Senate.

As discussed above, all three of the temples that were vowed in 219-7 BC were dedicated in 194-1 BC, more than a decade after the young M. Claudius Marcellus (cos. 196 BC) had dedicated the temple of Honos et Virtus, some three years after his father (whose temple it had been) had died in battle.  Eric Orlin (referenced below, at Appendix I, pp. 200-1)) pointed out, this had been followed by a decade in which, as far as we know, no temples were dedicated.  Thereafter (inter alia):

1. ✴On 10th November, 194 BC:
   

2. “Q. Marcius Ralla, a duovir aedi dedicandae, dedicated a temple to Fortuna Primigenia on the Quirinal hill”, (‘History of  Rome’, 34: 53: 5).
   

3. ✴In 191 BC:
   

4. •on 10th April:
   

5. “... after the lapse of 13 years, [the urban praetor], M. Junius Brutus dedicated [the Temple of the Magna Mater]”, (‘History of Rome’, 36: 36: 4); and
   

6. •perhaps on 19th December:
   

7. “C. Licinius Lucullus, [presumably as duovir aedi dedicandae], dedicated the Temple of Juventas in the Circus Maximus”, (‘History of Rome’, 36: 36: 5). 
   

The dedication of the Temple of the Magna Mater was dedicated by the urban praetor initially seems to be anomalous but, as Corey Brennan (referenced below, at p. 124) pointed out, a passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus suggests that the custom of praetors presiding over the rites of the goddess had been established in 204 BC, when the cult arrive in Rome: Dionysius observed that:

1. “... even though [the Romans have occasionally] introduced certain rites from abroad in pursuance of oracles, they celebrate them in accordance with their own traditions, after banishing all fabulous clap-trap.  The rites of the [Magna Mater] are a case in point: for the praetors perform sacrifices and celebrated games in her honour every year according to the Roman custom, [albeit that] the priest and priestess of the goddess are Phrygians ...”, (‘Roman Antiquities’, 2: 19: 3-4).
   

Cicero:

1. “Accius goes on to say that Livius [Andronicus] produced his first play ... in the consulship of C. Cornelius [Cethegus]and Q. Minucius Rufus, 197 BC] at the ludi Juventatis, which [M.] Livius Salinator had vowed at the battle of Sena”, (‘Brutus’, 73, translated by George Hendrickson and Harry Hubbell, referenced below, at p. 69).
   

Cassius Dio:

1. “The night following [Augusts’] departure for Gaul in 16 BC], the Temple of Juventas was burned to the ground”, (‘Roman History’, 54: 19: 7).
   

Augustus himself recorded in his biography (‘Res Gestae’, 19: 6) that the aedes Juventas was one of the temples that he had restored.